My Problem

My iMac is 7 years old and was getting slow and glitchy

My Fix

I asked an ifixit staff to guide me to the right hardware because you can't just throw any old HD in a mac. For barely more than $200 I went from a slow 1TB 8g computer to a perfect 4TB 12g computer!!! It was pretty seamless! Everything you need for understanding of the process is found online, and most of it on the ifixit site.

My Advice

Make sure to:

1. make a time machine backup

2. make a bootable USB for the OS - google this process

3. after the hardware install, format the new drive - enter disk utility on startup

4. install OS - choose after exiting disk utility

5. import old files

My Problem

My iMac is 7 years old and was getting slow and glitchy

My Fix

I asked an ifixit staff to guide me to the right hardware because you can't just throw any old HD in a mac. For barely more than $200 I went from a slow 1TB 8g computer to a perfect 4TB 12g computer!!! It was pretty seamless! Everything you ne . . .

My Problem

Original hard drive went bad, had to replace it.

My Fix

Repair went smooth. However, I did forget to attach one cable prior to reassembly. I had to open the unit back up and reattach the video cable. I ended up actually shocking myself because when I reopened the computer, I forgot to unplug the computer.

Also, wasn't able to install the operating system from the DVD drive for some reason. I ended up cloning a drive that was plugged in via USB; I used disk utility.

My Advice

First, never work on an iMac when it is plugged in. There is a possibility of lethal electric shock. Second, in many instances, cloning drives with disk utility is more time effective than reinstalling from recovery disk.

My Problem

Original hard drive went bad, had to replace it.

My Fix

Repair went smooth. However, I did forget to attach one cable prior to reassembly. I had to open the unit back up and reattach the video cable. I ended up actually shocking myself because when I reopened the computer, I forgot to unplug the computer.

My Problem

Hard Drive was showing problems and was concerned that it could fail at any time, so opted to replace it with a bigger capacity drive.

My Fix

I knew from the iFixit advice that the drive had to be replaced by a similar brand to the existing HD which turned out to be Seagate, so it took a week before I had the new drive after I had taken the steps to remove the existing drive and ordered my replacement. All went well but I found that some of the pics on the site were not all that detailed when referring to various connectors, for example the thermal HD connector. Apart from this and the lack of a more detailed article on getting back to the restore section of the PC and formatting the new disk all went well. I would have never contemplated trying to fix it myself without the iFixit website and advice. Keep up the great work!

My Advice

See above

My Problem

Hard Drive was showing problems and was concerned that it could fail at any time, so opted to replace it with a bigger capacity drive.

My Fix

I knew from the iFixit advice that the drive had to be replaced by a similar brand to the existing HD which turned out to be Seagate, so it took a week before I had t . . .

My Problem

I knew the hard drive on my 27" iMac was beginning to fail. It was getting slower, programs took longer to load, it was just a matter of time before it went belly up and died. Decided to be pro active and research what to do and if I could handle the repair myself.

My Fix

The repair went well- looked over the tool list and had everything setup and ready- the entire repair time to do the replacement took about 45 minutes- just stopped several times to review the repair list which I had printed out and loaded on my iPad for reference :-)

My Advice

The most difficult area for me was the vertical sync ribbon cable- you need to have tweezers for the removal but it takes patience for the reassembly of this cable because it is your final part to connect. I had to have my husband hold the display up so that I could work the cable back in place. It actually took me a few times to get it locked back in place. You just need to make sure you have it turned correctly so it slides back in snug.

My Problem

I knew the hard drive on my 27" iMac was beginning to fail. It was getting slower, programs took longer to load, it was just a matter of time before it went belly up and died. Decided to be pro active and research what to do and if I could handle the repair myself.

My Fix

My Problem

We were running out of disk space with our 500 GB disk on our late-2009 iMac, and I was fed up managing content on external USB drives.

My Fix

It was actually quite easy. It only took about 45 minutes and my 12 year old daughter did most of the work. The guide for the EMC 2308 was spot on for my iMac, which is an EMC 2551. Recovering the machine from the Time Machine backup on a USB drive worked fine, although it did take 4 hours to copy the nearly 500 GB of data over USB 2.0. We also took advantage to take out and take apart the DVD super drive to clean the lens (it stopped working years ago).

My Advice

Make sure to make the last Time Machine backup before shutting down!

After the repair, when the iMac is first restarted with the new disk, the disk repair utility comes up but the new disk was not visible. Before you can restore the data from the backup, you have use the Disk Utility to format (or reformat) the new disk to the Mac Journaled FS using the "first aid" utility. Then, the new disk shows up as one of the disks that can be used as the destination for recovery.

There was one minor hiccup. Although everything was installed properly after the recovery from the backup, MS Office asked for the license key when I tried to use it. I had to dig it out of my email archives. So keep such software keys handy because they are apparently associated to the HW Id of the disk somehow.

My Problem

We were running out of disk space with our 500 GB disk on our late-2009 iMac, and I was fed up managing content on external USB drives.

My Fix

It was actually quite easy. It only took about 45 minutes and my 12 year old daughter did most of the work. The guide for the EMC 2308 was spot on for my iMac, whi . . .

My Problem

Wanted larger local data internal repository with rapid loading apps/programs. Fed up of slow wifi and ethernet network filesystem update and waiting ages for file updates and backups. Went for Fusion drive using SSD and 4TB Seagate HDD

My Fix

Nothing exploded!. Went back together perfectly. Need plenty of time with no interruptions and another source for information such as iPad. Initially set up as a case-senstive HPS+ volume which lead to problems with Adobe products not loading or installing. As yet none of their products will work on a case-senstive volume. Wanted this as planned to use as a server but what the !&&*. Had to recreate a non-case-sensitive HPS+ volume and restore again to get Adobe stuff working again.

No problems with fans going flat out afterwards.

My Advice

Need to have fast Firewire link to backup before and restore after Fusion volume created if you have alot of data. It takes hours to restore. Using TimeMachine restore over network will take days to complete

Fusion volume is supposed to put system files on SSD leading to fast loading frequently used programs. User data directories on HDD. Performance degrades if you plan to edit huge video files.

Resources

Repairability

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It's time to speak out for your right to repair

We have a chance to guarantee our right to repair electronic
equipment—like smartphones, computers, and even farm equipment. This is a once-in-a-generation
chance to protect local repair jobs—the corner mom-and-pop repair shops that
keep getting squeezed out by manufacturers.

Join the cause and tell your state representative to support Right to Repair. Tell them you believe repair should be fair, affordable, and accessible. Stand up for your right to repair!